OMG Baby! (11 page)

‘Poppadums? Little tray of pickles? A pakora?’

I don’t answer. He kisses my shoulder.

‘
Get pakora now. Get onion bhaji now
.’
Angel has woken up.

‘Don’t be jealous,’ says Max.

I turn to face him. ‘I am not jealous!’ I say indignantly, pointing at my own chest, but I look at his eyes and glimpse our friendship and our love and realise I’m very jealous indeed of the willowy Lula and I will concede that I might even be overreacting. Question is, how can I get out of it now?

‘Viv, you have no competition,’ he says, holding his palms out to the side, like he’s pleading with a knife-wielder.

‘Huh! She’s your muse!’

‘No, you’re my muse,’ he says.

‘Am I?’ I ask, thrilled.

‘You know you are.’

‘I was once upon a time, but maybe now that you’ve conquered me . . .’

‘You always have been and always will be.’ He smiles.

‘Well, then –’ I wince and bang my forehead against his chest ‘– sorry.’

‘I shouldn’t neglect you,’ he says, stroking my hair.

‘Tonight was your big deal.’

‘Such a big deal and no sales.’

‘There will be sales. You’re a great talent, Guy said.’ I kiss him, but he doesn’t respond as usual; he breaks off first.

‘I’m a very, very hungry talent,’ he says, ‘so will you please ever just come for a curry?’

W
e leave
the Star of India close to midnight and I’ve learned a couple of things:

1
. People
who are drunk are not hilarious; rather, they are repetitive and loud and only think they are hilarious. I obviously believed Max was an absolute scream because I was always drinking when he was. Now pregnant and sober, I see the light.

2
. Lula is
thick as mince.

W
e get
home and climb the stairs to the flat with Max trying to sing ‘I’m In the Mood for Love’ and me shushing him. After I unlock the door, I turn round and hold my hand over his mouth.

‘Shh, shut up. Please do not wake Rainey,’ I say.

‘Rainey, Rainey, give me your answer do,’ he sings. I close the door. ‘What’re you doing? Let’s go to bed. I’m going to give you the spanking of your life.’

‘I’m not opening the door unless you promise to be quiet.’

‘OK, O-K,’ he says.

I turn the key and open the door a crack. He draws a huge breath in as if he’s going to shout and I spin round, holding the key up to his face like a weapon.

‘Joke!’ he says, grinning and swaying.

We stumble inside, me supporting Max, him repeating, ‘Shh!’ I steer him into the living room and set about organising the sofa bed with Max watching.

‘Viv, Viv, Vivienne!’

‘What?’

‘Can I go to the toilet, please?’

‘No.’

‘Come on! I have to pee.’

‘Go on, then, but be quiet!’ I whisper.

He clomps away. The door bangs, then a shout –something like ‘Ho!’ – and then a screech.

‘What in the name of unholy hell!’ Max is bellowing.

I run to the bathroom. Rainey stands under the fluorescent light clutching a hand towel to herself, her hair wild, her face covered in some sort of white cream.

‘Fuck me, I thought the place was haunted!’ laughs Max, swaying and unzipping his fly. ‘By a mad, naked she-ghost!’

Rainey shoots me a mortified look and flees the bathroom.

‘Sorry!’ I call to her bare bottom as she slams the door.

T
ime flies
when you’re having fun. The sofa bed now fills us with dread. Thinking about it, I realise it’s never been a very good sofa and is actually the opposite of a bed, in that it’s almost impossible to sleep on, especially with a six-foot-two Irishman. I hate everything about it: the creak of the unfolding springs, the baggy fitted sheet and the mean, thin scrap of mattress. But as I explained to Max, it’s only for a short time, and I think he sees that having Rainey here with me is important since I must have some kind of relationship with her before Angel is born, hence it’s worth all the discomfort.

Rainey has taken it upon herself to ensure that I have the correct nutrition. She’s preparing snacks using crushed-up rice crackers, nuts and molasses, and putting them in my bag with notes saying things like, ‘This is a really lovely day – congratulations!’ I won’t say I don’t sometimes crave a bacon sandwich, but on the whole I feel a lot healthier. We’ve managed to have a couple of talks and I think we’re getting to know each other. Not close enough to ask who my father is or to find out why she left, but we’ll get to that.

There is a little bit of an atmosphere developing between Rainey and Max. Yesterday when he refused to eat the braised lettuce with mung bean stroganoff, she suggested he go out and find himself some Irish stew. Then he asked if she might feel happier staying somewhere else and I had to tell him off and make him say that she is very welcome, because Rainey locked herself in her room and started chanting. I think Max is under a lot of pressure and worried because he hasn’t sold any of his Spanish paintings. I’m trying not to think about that, though. I know he is a great talent, and today I have an important meeting with Tease UK, and also Lucy is back from honeymoon. I’m meeting her for dinner, and this time I will definitely tell her I’m pregnant. There’s never going to be a right time, and I think I’m starting to show anyway. To be honest, it’ll be a relief to be out of the flat for an evening.

The head offices of Tease UK are in Guildford. Michael, Christie and I take the train down from Waterloo, going through the products, the costings, looking at the market until we feel that the people at Tease are in on the opportunity of a lifetime. Wedding crackers are going to be huge.

‘Who are we meeting with, man or woman?’ asks Michael.

‘One of their buyers, Sarah Marshall her name is.’

‘Well, that’s good. There is nothing I can’t sell to a girl.’

He sits opposite me tapping a pen against his pointy little teeth. He’s in his one and only suit – pale grey, slightly shiny – with a thin purple tie. Christie sits beside him in a demure gold dress with a Peter Pan collar. She seems buoyed up by his enthusiasm, or else she’s just taken something in the toilets: she’s wide-eyed and alert in a new way.

‘Ha! What do you think their offices will be like? Do you reckon there’ll be a bondage room where they test all their products?’ I ask, smoothing down the skirt of my coming-in-very-useful green dress.

‘No,’ says Michael, holding up a hand, ‘I’ve got it. Their waiting room, right, will be furnished entirely with their range of furniture: cunnilingus hammocks, ass-thwacking stools and bondage beds made up in their own range of black satin bed linen.’ He waves an open palm in an arc. ‘And all the light fittings, yeah, will be made entirely from dildos.’

‘And will there be naked dwarf slaves running about?’ I ask.

‘Hey, whatever floats your boat,’ says Michael, sitting back.

Christie does a little breathless laugh through her nose. ‘And there’ll be a desk and Sarah will be sat at it!’

‘I fucking hope so, Christie – she’s meeting with us!’ says Michael, and titters in his strange way, ending in a bray.

‘No, I was going to say she’ll be sat there handcuffed.’

Michael frowns, then sniffs and takes to gazing out of the window. I smile reassuringly at Christie.

T
he meeting
actually takes place in a shabby out-of-town office block. Sarah Marshall leads us to a gloomy meeting room, a small cordoned-off space with polystyrene tiles on the partition walls. Sarah is quite overweight, but her brown V-neck top is slim. She leads us up a few steps and sits breathlessly at the table. I notice the pointed toes of her high-heeled boots are misshapen, sticking up like the ends of two organic turnips. There’s not a harness or a sling to be seen; it’s just dry and grey and slightly dusty in here. A scribbled note stuck on the wall reads, ‘Leave this space clean and clear of clutter, thank you!’ and underneath someone has written, ‘What you looking.’ Which is absolutely maddening, because I keep reading it over and over and wondering what it means.

‘Before we start, let me give you a brief outline of the kind of company Tease UK is,’ says Sarah, as if reading a script in a very camp voice. ‘Tease UK started as one woman’s dream of bedroom fulfilment in the late 1990s and very quickly mushroomed into the multi-national company you know today.’ I raise my eyebrows to look amazed, even though we read this information already, on their website. ‘We have fifty stores in the UK alone, with plans to double that number by the end of the year, and last year we had an annual turnover of just under fifty million.’

‘Well, you’re impressing the shit out of me right now!’ says Michael.

Sarah stops for breath and glances at him with the hint of a smile. ‘We manufacture a lot of our own products, but occasionally we do buy from other companies. We’re interested in sex toys, lingerie and party accessories, but we also look for innovative bedroom-furniture design and sex-themed bed linen. Now it’s over to you guys to tell me how you think your product fits in to our vision,’ she finishes, pressing her lips together carefully.

I feel my heart bump up against my ribcage in shock. It’s me. I’m on.

‘Thank you, Sarah, for that informative outline and for giving us the opportunity to meet with you today,’ I begin, noticing her eyes flicking from me to Michael, her lips remaining pressed as I introduce us. ‘What we have to show you today is a range that I think will fit very well with your party-accessories line,’ I say, taking out a holdall and placing my hand on the zip.

I go through our planned sales pitch, although we ad-lib a little. Christie gushes over the photos of the crackers on a wedding table. Michael pulls a cracker with Sarah so she can get the full experience. He blows the bubbles from the mini penises at her while she’s looking at the profit margins and she bats them out of her face with a little giggle. Then she says she’ll let us know, thanks us for coming and escorts us out into the windswept traffic-tangled overflow of Guildford.

As the train drags us London-bound again, I run through the meeting in my mind. Our presentation was OK, I think. We were professional and yet not too dry. We were approachable and yet on the ball, and now we’ll have to wait and see, but I hope to God they buy. I hope they do. Under the table, I cross my fingers, and putting my hand near to my tummy, I realise that I’m completely starving and look down the aisle for the buffet cart.

‘Did you see that girl?’ asks Michael. ‘She wanted me.’

‘You mean Sarah?’ asks Christie.

‘Yeah, I mean Sssaraaah. I love big women.’ He jiggles in his seat.

‘I don’t think she wanted you – how could you tell?’ Christie scrunches up her face.

‘I pick up vibes,’ he says, wiggling his fingers in her face. ‘From you, nothing.’

‘What about me?’ I ask, and he does the finger thing in my direction.

‘Very weak, hardly anything.’

‘Who here fancies a cream tea?’ I say, spotting the man with a trolley.

‘Viv, you’re not on the Orient Express. “Cream tea”?’ scoffs Christie, and she’s right: I end up with a paper cup of weak tea and a bag of Mini Cheddars.

‘Probably for the best, though,’ she says, as I cram as many Mini Cheddars into my mouth as will fit and, when they suck all moisture from my tongue, take a slurp of tea.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well –’ her eyes shoot to my waist ‘– you know.’

I put down the tea. ‘Go on,’ I say.

‘You’ve put on a bit, haven’t you?’

I stare at Christie until she starts to fidget.

‘I mean, you still look OK . . .’ she begins.

‘For your information, Christie, I’m having a baby,’ I say proudly.

‘What, you’re . . . ?’

‘Up the duff,’ I nod.

‘So you’ve . . . ?’

‘Got a bun in the oven,’ I say.

‘But how . . . ?’

‘Well, what you have to do is somehow get live sperm. I did it by the traditional method, but you don’t have to nowadays . . .’ I begin to explain.

‘Vivienne, are you having a baby?’ interrupts Michael, pulling out his iPod earphones.

‘Yes! Look, gather round, team. I am having a baby in April. The father is Max. We’re engaged.’

Christie looks at my left hand, at my face and then closes her mouth.

I carry on with the Mini Cheddars.

‘How’s the morning sickness?’ asks Michael.

‘Well, I find it OK if I just keep eating,’ I say with my mouth full.

‘Sepia,’ says Michael, nodding knowingly.

‘You don’t want an Aries baby, Viv. Wilful they are, selfish.’ Christie shakes her head, worried.

‘You don’t get to choose, Christie. That’s those zodiac teddies you’re thinking of.’

‘Couple of drops of Sepia 30 will sort sickness out.’

‘I didn’t know you were into homeopathy,’ I say to him.

‘No!’ says Christie, turning to study Michael. ‘I would have sworn you were straight,’ she says.

‘Tee-hee,’ Michael says sarcastically, pressing his fingers to his lips. ‘Ha, ha, bonk,’ he says without smiling. ‘I am literally laughing my head off.’